President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) approval rating has plummeted to its lowest level since the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot in 2009 amid recent controversies over US beef and avian flu, a recent poll showed.
Only 26.1 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with Ma’s performance, with 62.1 percent disapproving of the president, the survey conducted by Taiwan Brain Trust think tank on Wednesday and Thursday showed.
Those figures were the lowest since August 2009, when Ma’s approval ratings dropped to 16 percent after his handling of Morakot, the deadliest typhoon in Taiwan’s history, which killed hundreds of Taiwanese, the think tank said.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
“The numbers signal a crisis for the Ma administration and, as you can see, the situation is getting worse,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said.
Responses to almost all the questions asked in the survey were unfavorable to Ma. More than half of respondents said they were unhappy with his performance over US beef imports, the H5N2 avian flu outbreak, rising commodity prices and tax reform.
On the recent US beef controversy, 54.8 percent of respondents questioned Ma’s integrity, because he pledged not to lift the ban on the growth additive ractopamine during the election campaign. A total of 67.7 percent disapproved of the government’s conditional lifting of the ban.
When asked about the alleged cover-up of an avian flu outbreak, 54.1 percent of respondents said they believed that government agencies had deliberately concealed information and 73.8 percent said the government’s handling of the outbreak was unacceptable.
These results suggest two problems in the Ma administration — lack of integrity and incompetence, Lin said.
Shih Cheng-feng (施正鋒), a professor at National Dong Hwa University, said Ma’s role in the recent controversies reflected a serious flaw in Taiwan’s Constitution.
At the beginning of his term in office, Ma was able to sit in the Presidential Office and do nothing, while claiming to be simply -fulfilling a role regulated by the Constitution, whereas he now “seems have his hands on everything” and is ignoring the Executive Yuan, Shih said.
According to the survey, Ma’a approval ratings never exceeded 40 percent after May 2009, one year after he took office.
Shih also highlighted the implications of answers to one of the survey questions, namely that 76.6 percent of respondents believed that public health was more important than relations with the US.
“It appears to me that people are more hostile to the US than they were and the Ma administration is going to have to work even harder to mend relations with Washington in the future,” he said.
Shih also said that former DPP chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), an experienced negotiator on trade issues who is familiar with international affairs, should have been playing a more prominent role for the DPP during the recent controversies over US beef and avian flu.
The survey, which collected 1,116 samples and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent, also found that 53.1 percent of respondents were not satisfied with the new Cabinet led by Premier Sean Chen (陳冲).
Three cases of Candida auris, a fungus that can cause a yeast infection known as candidiasis in humans, have been reported in Taiwan over the past few years, but they did not display drug resistance, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said yesterday. Lo made the statement at a news conference in Taipei, one day after the Washington Post reported that the potentially deadly fungus is spreading in US hospitals. The fungus was first discovered in Japan in 2009 and poses a danger to immunocompromised people, with an estimated mortality rate of 30 to 60 percent, Lo
‘DIRE’: Taiwan would not engage in ‘dollar diplomacy,’ the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, after China reportedly offered Honduras up to US$3 billion to establish relations The government yesterday recalled its ambassador to Honduras after the Central American nation sent its foreign minister to China, signaling that it would sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Suspicions concerning ties with Honduras are rife after Honduran President Xiomara Castro on Tuesday last week wrote on Twitter that her country would pursue diplomatic ties with China. Honduran Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduardo Enrique Reina traveled to China on Wednesday “to promote efforts for the establishment of diplomatic relations” on instructions from Castro, Reuters yesterday quoted Honduran presidential spokesman Ivis Alvarado as saying. The government “has decided to immediately recall the ambassador to Honduras
SWITCH TO BEIJING: The government severed diplomatic relations about an hour after Honduras announced the move, saying that no semi-official ties would be maintained Taiwan severed diplomatic ties with Honduras and ended all cooperation with the Central American country, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, about an hour and a half after the Honduran Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Twitter at 8am Taiwan time that the nation would cut its ties with Taiwan. Honduran President Xiomara Castro on Wednesday sent Honduran Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduardo Enrique Reina to Beijing to negotiate the establishment of diplomatic relations. She announced the plan on March 14 on Twitter. “To safeguard Taiwan’s sovereignty and dignity, Taiwan is terminating diplomatic ties with Honduras with immediate effect” after communication with
MEDIA, SOCIETY FOCUS: Doublethink Lab said that Beijing is trying to coerce countries that rely on China economically to pursue policies in its favor China has stronger influence over Taiwan’s media and society than any other country, the Taipei-based Doublethink Lab think tank said yesterday, as it announced its China Index gauging Beijing’s global influence. Taiwan ranked 11th overall among 82 countries assessed, but first in terms of social and media influence, Doublethink Lab chairman Puma Shen (沈伯洋) told a news conference in Taipei. More than 200 experts and academics participated in the project, including some highly influential figures, Shen said. The index collects information from countries worldwide to gauge China’s influence and assess how Chinese policies affect them, Shen said. In terms of Chinese
RSS